Chapter 13
Narrative inquiry
Case studies from Senegal and Northern Italy
This chapter describes how narratives can be
useful analytical and methodological tools through a close
analysis of two narrative excerpts that I collected in Senegal
and Northern Italy. Both examples examine how certain
interactional patterns, such as participant transposition and
the co-construction of individuals’ identities and stances, are
enacted and sustained in storytelling practices. These patterns
would not emerge if narratives were not considered as situated
speech events in which speech participants’ interactional moves
(“interactional text”) are as important as the narrative content
(“denotational text”). It is thanks to this
narratives-as-practices approach, versus the more traditional
narratives-as-texts approach, that scholars are able to unveil
participants’ interactional dynamics. The two case studies,
moreover, are fully contextualized and situated.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.An overview of the study
- 3.Why was narrative inquiry used? How was it implemented?
- 4.What challenges were faced? How were the challenges addressed?
- 5.Insights gained
- 6.Conclusions
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Notes
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References
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Appendix